Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

Cross border? Furious!

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of Denmark’s Social Democrats and an MEP in 1999-2004, is doing her best to ruin a great chance of becoming the country’s first female prime minister.

In recent days it has emerged that Thorning-Schmidt, whose tax arrangements have come under unforgiving scrutiny in the past, is leasing her car from Germany (through a Danish agent), apparently because it saves her €20 each month, while depriving the Danish government of €70 a month in tax.

The car-leasing deal is legal, but politically crass. She took out her new lease two days before she voted in the national parliament to close the existing loop-hole from 2013. On reflection, she might realise that, even if the improvement of cross-border Danish-German relations is much needed (witness the recent decision to reinstate border controls), there are better ways of going about it. It all seems a high political price to pay for the sake of a dark-blue Volkswagen Polo Fox 1.4.